


The Lay of the Land

by shouldbeover



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shouldbeover/pseuds/shouldbeover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Guillam mourns that he will never have a healthy relationship because of the service</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lay of the Land

**Author's Note:**

> A character study of Peter Guillam (from the film).

When he was upset Peter Guillam would drive his little sports car up the M1 out of London in the middle of the night, when the roads held mainly lorries with their loads, and the lights in the small towns were dim flickers rushing past.

George, his George, was gone in a flurry of accusations (George’s) and tears (his) because he’d come closer to loving George than any other man he’d slept with. But the tears were mostly for the terrible loneliness. The fear that there was going to be nothing else in his life from now on. He couldn’t say, “It’s for national security, Love. When the winds shift I’ll bring you back.” Nor could he ask George to stay if it all went tits up. Never mind being out amongst the scalp hunters; he’d be posted to Somewhere Else. Somewhere like Algiers or Panama. Just hot enough to keep you from sitting by the pool with nothing to do, but still out in the cold. There wouldn’t be much for a middle-aged teacher from a middling comprehensive to do there.

Seeing Control’s cluttered shrine to paranoia and secrets, devoid of a loved one’s hand, and knowing that Smiley had been the only attendee at the man’s funeral, had felt like a bucket of water to the face. Was this really all that was waiting for them all at the end? Unlamented, all one’s achievements buried under official secrets?

He had reached that limbo-land, roughly between thirty-five and forty-five, where one was neither a Young Turk nor an Old Dog. The dreams of ‘making a difference’ had become a prayer of ‘just don’t make it worse.’ He had been five when the war ended, old enough to remember the excitement: flags waving, hugging and laughing crowds in the street, and all ‘Cry God for Harry, England and St. George.’ But the end of Empire, the Cold War, and the American war in VietNam had blurred the clarity of those early days. ‘...If the cause be not good…’

He and Hayden, nothing more than playacting, playing the office playboys, because even if they bedded the new blonde, brunette or redhead, it wouldn’t make one spot of difference in anyone’s life. Was it any wonder that so many of them were homosexuals? Keeping secrets came naturally, so you were left with people who had as many secrets as you. Haydon had his sad girls and boys du jour. Prideaux had only Haydon. Tarr and a couple of the other scalp hunters were said to swing all ways to Sunday, but he’d never been interested in those games. And Guillam wouldn’t have touched Alleline with a ten-foot pole, although he’d heard that Alleline wouldn’t have minded touching him.

Office wives, office husbands, office gropes.

At some drunken party, he’d even been approached by Lady Ann, Mrs. Smiley. Not a pass, really, more an aerial reconnaissance; checking the lay of the land in case one needed a landing spot later on.

Sometimes he wished that George, George Smiley that was, swung both ways, because he could imagine slipping those owlish glasses off and brushing George’s hair out of his eyes and…just sharing the comfort of someone who could understand what your life was like.

But George didn’t swing as far as he knew, and even if he had at one point in some impossible-to-imagine youth, there was always Ann, and if there hadn’t been Ann it was possible that there wouldn’t be a George Smiley, certainly not one that worked in intelligence. There might be a quiet academician studying German texts with the same name, who resembled him, but it wouldn’t be the George Smiley that Guillam knew and, if he was honest with himself, loved.


End file.
